marcus keane (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
exorkismos) wrote2018-09-28 11:28 pm
exorkismos) wrote2018-09-28 11:28 pm
@wontgraham
It feels strange to be the one left behind for once. Marcus is back from an exorcism in Texas, a little sunburnt and too nonchalant about showing up in Wolf Trap — like he’s just passing through. Like Will was just on he way. All that nonchalance disappears when he sinks into a welcome embrace, face pushed against the side of Will’s neck.
Will gets a call the next day. Marcus says he’ll look after the dogs, even though Will always makes other arrangements for that. He means: I’ll stay here, I’ll wait. And he does. Wait, that is. It’s strange to be in Will’s home without him. Marcus noses through everything: bedside table, desk, shelves, bathroom cabinets. Fish hooks and lots of painkillers. Lesson plans. He explores the upstairs part of the house that Will doesn’t use. He spoils the dogs and waits by the phone and gets bored and thinks, why am I doing this again? But the answer is too grave to admit, though the shape of it haunts him.
Will’s on his way back. The trip was a bust, maybe even an intentional distraction on the part of the killer that the press is calling The Invisible Man. Marcus doesn’t say he misses him on the phone. He says ‘the dogs miss you’. Then he’s annoyed with himself for saying something so stupid and sentimental and simultaneously cowardly. Well, Will must understand what he means. They hang up not long after that. Marcus drinks a bit of Will’s whiskey, plays with the dogs before it’s time for everyone to sleep. Everyone. He picked that up from Will.
In the night he’s woken harmlessly by the bed moving under the weight of another person, and he exhales in a grateful purr, rolling over with a smile and then remembering that Will isn’t back until the morning and it’s still dark.
It’s not a fight. It’s a scuffle, Marcus’s forehead smacking up into his assailant’s mouth, his voice raising (for some reason he says What did you do with the dogs) and then it all ends in the smell of chloroform and someone saying shh, shhhh.
*
“You know I killed the dogs, right.”
“Shut it,” says Marcus, flat and a little slurred from pain. He’s blindfolded and shackled neatly to nailed-down bed frame, sitting on the floor beside it, arms behind him. Twisted up and dragged together so that dull red pain beats across his shoulders and back. This is how the Invisible Man likes to talk.
He doesn’t like to be seen. He comes carrying the cable for the otherwise useless standing lamp, which he plugs in himself. Then he blindfolds Marcus and he switches the lights on and paces around the room. The rest of the time, Marcus is alone in the dark. Sometimes restrained, sometimes not. It’s random, or it feels that way. From what he can tell from blind investigations, the room is...boring. A blank bedroom with the windows boarded up and most of the furniture taken out. There’s a bed and a bucket. No sheets. No ligatures. No cable for the lamp. Marcus goes through the checklist and nods: like being on suicide watch. He remembers the drill. He's glad for it. It gives him something to focus on, so that he isn't weightless and aimless in the dark.
“I think you feel responsible.”
That’s the other thing. The Invisible Man likes to see and not be seen, and sometimes he fancies himself insightful. Marcus, who has dealt with demons, finds his attempts pitiful. He clings to his derision even though he knows it’s foolhardy, because it’s all that he’s got. The Invisible Man doesn’t budge when Marcus prays, and he prays a lot. Right now, his shoulders feel like they’re coming apart and he’s not had food since he woke up here.
Marcus is familiar with the case. He’d followed nosily along on Tattlecrime and all sorts, despite Will’s irritation. Asked all sorts of questions on the phone. Do you think you’ll get him? How do you think he chooses his victims? Have any of them ever survived?
The answer to the last one is no. He’s termed the Invisible Man because he breaks and enters stealthily, kidnaps stealthily, And because by the time he’s done with them, his victims don’t have eyes, just holes in the head. Marcus tries not to think about that. He tries to remember that God is not absent. That God has a plan. That, hopefully, so does Will. That killing the dogs doesn’t fit with the Invisible Man’s MO.
Keep him talking, Marcus thinks. Keep him chatty. If he’s chatting, he’s not eyeing up the melon baller. Or whatever he uses.
“I guess I do,” he croaks. “Bit of a bleeding heart, me.”
He can hear his own heart in his ears. God’s all-powerful, but everything mortal dies some time. At least, he supposes vaguely and a bit distantly, it’s not demons. He’s almost disappointed. Born to it, dying to it: good old human cruelty wins the day again.
Will gets a call the next day. Marcus says he’ll look after the dogs, even though Will always makes other arrangements for that. He means: I’ll stay here, I’ll wait. And he does. Wait, that is. It’s strange to be in Will’s home without him. Marcus noses through everything: bedside table, desk, shelves, bathroom cabinets. Fish hooks and lots of painkillers. Lesson plans. He explores the upstairs part of the house that Will doesn’t use. He spoils the dogs and waits by the phone and gets bored and thinks, why am I doing this again? But the answer is too grave to admit, though the shape of it haunts him.
Will’s on his way back. The trip was a bust, maybe even an intentional distraction on the part of the killer that the press is calling The Invisible Man. Marcus doesn’t say he misses him on the phone. He says ‘the dogs miss you’. Then he’s annoyed with himself for saying something so stupid and sentimental and simultaneously cowardly. Well, Will must understand what he means. They hang up not long after that. Marcus drinks a bit of Will’s whiskey, plays with the dogs before it’s time for everyone to sleep. Everyone. He picked that up from Will.
In the night he’s woken harmlessly by the bed moving under the weight of another person, and he exhales in a grateful purr, rolling over with a smile and then remembering that Will isn’t back until the morning and it’s still dark.
It’s not a fight. It’s a scuffle, Marcus’s forehead smacking up into his assailant’s mouth, his voice raising (for some reason he says What did you do with the dogs) and then it all ends in the smell of chloroform and someone saying shh, shhhh.
“You know I killed the dogs, right.”
“Shut it,” says Marcus, flat and a little slurred from pain. He’s blindfolded and shackled neatly to nailed-down bed frame, sitting on the floor beside it, arms behind him. Twisted up and dragged together so that dull red pain beats across his shoulders and back. This is how the Invisible Man likes to talk.
He doesn’t like to be seen. He comes carrying the cable for the otherwise useless standing lamp, which he plugs in himself. Then he blindfolds Marcus and he switches the lights on and paces around the room. The rest of the time, Marcus is alone in the dark. Sometimes restrained, sometimes not. It’s random, or it feels that way. From what he can tell from blind investigations, the room is...boring. A blank bedroom with the windows boarded up and most of the furniture taken out. There’s a bed and a bucket. No sheets. No ligatures. No cable for the lamp. Marcus goes through the checklist and nods: like being on suicide watch. He remembers the drill. He's glad for it. It gives him something to focus on, so that he isn't weightless and aimless in the dark.
“I think you feel responsible.”
That’s the other thing. The Invisible Man likes to see and not be seen, and sometimes he fancies himself insightful. Marcus, who has dealt with demons, finds his attempts pitiful. He clings to his derision even though he knows it’s foolhardy, because it’s all that he’s got. The Invisible Man doesn’t budge when Marcus prays, and he prays a lot. Right now, his shoulders feel like they’re coming apart and he’s not had food since he woke up here.
Marcus is familiar with the case. He’d followed nosily along on Tattlecrime and all sorts, despite Will’s irritation. Asked all sorts of questions on the phone. Do you think you’ll get him? How do you think he chooses his victims? Have any of them ever survived?
The answer to the last one is no. He’s termed the Invisible Man because he breaks and enters stealthily, kidnaps stealthily, And because by the time he’s done with them, his victims don’t have eyes, just holes in the head. Marcus tries not to think about that. He tries to remember that God is not absent. That God has a plan. That, hopefully, so does Will. That killing the dogs doesn’t fit with the Invisible Man’s MO.
Keep him talking, Marcus thinks. Keep him chatty. If he’s chatting, he’s not eyeing up the melon baller. Or whatever he uses.
“I guess I do,” he croaks. “Bit of a bleeding heart, me.”
He can hear his own heart in his ears. God’s all-powerful, but everything mortal dies some time. At least, he supposes vaguely and a bit distantly, it’s not demons. He’s almost disappointed. Born to it, dying to it: good old human cruelty wins the day again.